8 White-winged Chough at Watson, ACT
Identification history
| Corcorax melanorhamphos | 13 Aug 2019 | natureguy | ||
| Corcorax melanorhamphos | 12 Aug 2019 | kdm |
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User's notes
One Chough had white feathers interleaved with the usual black all over the body. Is this a moult?
2 comments
ArcherCallaway
wrote:
13 Aug 2019
Cool. It would have to be genetic I think. I've not encountered or heard of choughs like this - might interest people if you wanted to share this to the COG chatline?
DonFletcher
wrote:
15 Aug 2019
Leucism (resulting in 'leucistic' animals) occurs infrequently throughout many vertebrates including humans (eg friends with a white spot in their dark hair). Its effect looks like a partial albinism. These individuals can be positively selected by breeders (eg think of piebald and skewbald horses) or nature (the white Bennett's wallabies on Maria Is) but more often white seems deleterious (eg the regularly reported white kangaroos around the ACT rarely seem to last). There are claims, e.g. by Jerry Olsen, ACT, that raptors target individuals in a group that look 'different', so if confirmed, such behaviour by predators would be expected to result in negative selection for leucism.
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Nearby sightings
Location information
- Coordinates 149.169212-35.229199
- Maps Mount Majura
- Places Watson, ACT
Sighting information
- 25 Abundance
- 11 Jul 2019 12:00 AM Recorded on
- kdm Recorded by
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Species information
- Corcorax melanorhamphos Scientific name
- White-winged Chough Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Local native
- Non-Invasive
- Up to 899.7m Recorded at altitude
- 710 images trained Machine learning
- External link More information
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- Verified by an expert moderator
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
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